ORIGINAL RESEARCH Rugby-playing history at the national U13 level and sub- sequent participation at the national U16 and U18 rugby tournaments Justin Durandt1 BSc (Med)(Hons) Exercise Science (Biokinetics) Ziyaad Parker2 BSc (Med)(Hons) Exercise Science (Biokinetics) Herman Masimla3 (BA, HDE) Mike Lambert2 (PhD) 1 Discovery Health High Performance Centre, Sports Science Institute of South Africa, Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa 2 MRC/UCT Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa 3 South African Rugby Union, Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa Correspondence to: Justin Durandt ([email protected]) term, as there is currently no consensus on the definition of either Abstract talent identification (TID) or talent development (TDE). Therefore . The South African Rugby Union has adopted the Background for the purpose of this paper the definition used in a recent review model of competition at a young age (U13 years) to identify talent. of talent identification and development models in sport will be There is concern however that bigger players who mature early used (p. 403): ‘process of recognising current participants with the are selected at this age, and that the majority of these players do 4 potential to excel in a particular sport’ and TDE is described as not play rugby at a high level after puberty. ‘providing the most appropriate learning environment to realise this The aim of this study was to establish how many 4 Objectives. potential’. players in the 2005 U13 Craven week (n=349) participated in sub- The first systematic talent identification and development sequent U16 Grant Khomo and U18 Craven week tournaments. programmes were implemented by the communist countries in the Design. Longitudinal. 5 1960s and 70s. Other countries, such as China and Australia, used Results. 31.5% of the players who played in the U13 Craven substantial state resources to fund TID and TDE programmes in the week, were again selected to play at U16 Grant Khomo week and 6 1980 and 1990s. These programmes have created the perception 24.1% were selected for the U18 Craven week. held by many parents, coaches and administrators that talented Conclusion. Seventy-six per cent of the players selected for the adolescent athletes can be detected or identified by measuring U13 tournament do not play at the U18 national Craven week those characteristics that predict success in adult competition. This tournament. These data need to be considered when decisions traditional view has been contradicted in the scientific literature are made about the cost-effectiveness of staging the U13 tourna- 4,5 where erroneous assumptions and problems have been identified. ment, particularly if the main goal of this tournament is for talent For example, the main problem with this model is that most talent identification. identification programmes are directed at the adolescent age group (13 - 18 years), an age which is characterised by much variation 5 Introduction as a result of different rates of development. Furthermore, talent is The South African Rugby Union (SARU) hosts four national competi- not simply the measurement of innate abilities, but results from the tion tournaments for junior players (13 - 18 years of age) each year. interaction of these innate abilities with the environment within which 4 These tournaments are designed to be the pinnacle of SARU’s tal- the athlete develops. For these reasons the traditional models, 1 ent identification and development programme. The national tour- popularised in the 1980s and 1990s, are now being challenged. This naments are divided into three age groups, U13 Craven week, U16 has resulted in a general shift towards athlete development rather Grant Khomo week and U18 Craven week and Academy week. than talent identification. The model that best encapsulates this shift 7 is the Long Term Athlete Development model (LTAD). This model The reason for the first national schools tournament in July 1964 7 was to bring the top high school boys together to celebrate the 75th was developed by Istvan Balyi and describes the different stages anniversary of the South African Rugby board. The tournament was of physical, mental, emotional and cognitive development of children named after the famous Springbok rugby player and coach Dr Danie and adolescents. The main emphasis of this model is to provide Craven. The U18 tournament has been held annually since then and more time and opportunities for athletes to develop, especially those is currently rated as one of the top school-boy rugby tournaments athletes who mature at a later stage. In addition, this model provides 2 in the world. The tournament has a reputation for identifying and guidelines on the types of activities related to talent identification developing talent in South Africa, supported by the fact that several and skill acquisition that are appropriate at the different age groups. 3 Springboks played in the tournament as schoolboys. The LTAD model provides a framework within which each sport discipline can create an athlete development pathway catering for To understand the context of these age group tournaments in the demands of that sport. relation to talent identification, it is necessary to firstly define this SAJSM VOL 23 NO. 4 2011 103 Early research on talent identification of young rugby players players listed on the SARU database was n=349 as a result of three (8 - 13 years) in South Africa showed that talented players could be teams only having 21 players listed. 8 identified at an early age. However, this study and a subsequent Fig. 1 shows that one 2005 U13 player (0.3%) participated in follow-up study did not track whether these talented young players the U16 Grant Khomo Tournament in 2006, five players (1.4%) developed into older talented players, particularly after they had 9 participated in 2007 and 107 players (30.7%) participated in 2008. matured through puberty (13 - 18 years). In a recent commentary The results show that the players had a greater representation in the we show how South Africa has 9.4 and 3.7 times as many pre-teen U16 tournament as their age increased from U14 to U16 over three players compared with Australia and New Zealand respectively, yet successive years. Fig. 2 shows that in total 110 (31.5%) players who at a senior level South Africa has only 3.1 and 2.3 times as many 10 played U13 Craven week were selected for U16 Craven week in players as Australia and New Zealand. It may be argued that 2006 - 2008. The totals in Fig. 2 are less than the totals in Fig. 1 SARU has to place less emphasis on organised talent identification 11 because 3 players from 2007 also participated in 2008. As a result of as there is such a large pool of pre-teen players (n=239 614). them participating for 2 years in succession they were not counted With such a large pool of players, the precision and efficiency of the as repeats in the total. system becomes less important because the expectation is that the talented players will emerge as a result of the competition. It follows that SARU has adopted the approach of organised competition as its main source of talent identification and development. With this approach, and the strong competition between rugby-playing schools, the chances of talented players emerging are very good. However, this approach might also account for the large attrition of players from pre-teens to seniors observed in South Africa, but not in a country such as Australia which places less emphasis on 12 competition at these young ages. In contrast to the competitive model for young players, adopted by SARU, most experts agree that promoting participation should 13 take precedence over competition at a young age. Particularly at the U13 level players have different maturation ages. Therefore there is a bias for the coaches to select the bigger boys who may be more mature, but not necessarily more talented. There have been discussions about changing the format of the National U13 tournament and to rather use the resources for activities aimed at player retention and participation (Personal communication: M Green, SARU Development Manager). One of the problems SARU Fig. 1. Number of players from the 2005 U13 tournament who has had in making these decisions is that there is no hard evidence played at subsequent U16 Grant Khomo and U18 Craven week supporting either side of the argument. Therefore the aim of the tournaments. The data are expressed as a percentage of the study was to provide objective data to determine how many boys 2005 U13 tournament (n=349). who played at a U13 national tournament went on to play at the U16 Grant Khomo and U18 Craven week tournaments. We hypothesised that the representation of the U13 players in the older groups would get progressively lower because the factors which determine performance in rugby at an U18 level are not evident at the U13 level and only partially developed by 16 years of age. Methods The study was conducted in the form of a survey and was retrospec- tive in nature. The 2005 U13 Craven week list of players from the SARU database was used for analysis. The year 2005 was selected as this was the first year that all the names of all players attending the week were entered into an electronic database. These names were checked against all the names of all the players attending the U16 Grant Khomo or the U18 Craven week tournaments be- tween 2006 and 2010, using the SARU database. The names were manually sorted to determine representation of the players over the duration of the study.